


a milkshake with cinnamon and sugar

by maybefreak



Category: Frühlings Erwachen | Spring Awakening - Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Body Image, Canon Era, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Insecurity, M/M, Weight Gain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 14:41:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18896692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybefreak/pseuds/maybefreak
Summary: "Why shouldn't we just skim the cream right off the top? Shouldn't we indulge when we feel it necessary?"





	a milkshake with cinnamon and sugar

**Author's Note:**

> This... is a whole ton of self projection. I had this idea while I was in driver's ed and I waited three hours to be able to go home and write it. Ernst loves dessert and cannot be stopped.

How long has that looked that way? 

 

Ernst couldn't help but wonder, as he stared straight ahead of him at his stomach, which was now protruding out farther than he ever remembered. It wasn't large by any stretch of the imagination, he could still see his feet while laying down with plenty of room to spare, but that didn't change that he was suddenly faced with the reality of having gained a bit of weight. 

 

Ernst had been awkwardly lanky during his adolescent and teenage years, given the combination of his height and his slim figure. He could blame his fast metabolism for that, because Heaven knows that Ernst could eat, but he never seemed to gain a thing. When he was nearing his twenties, he developed just enough muscle to where he didn't look malnourished anymore, but even then, he was still a string bean, as Hanschen affectionately labelled him. 

 

He knew that his eating habits would catch up to him someday, but he was expecting that to be when he reached forty or so, certainly not at twenty-six. 

 

It may be just a trick of the light. 

 

Ernst removed his hand from where he was resting it, underneath the pillow that was supporting his head, and firmly pressed it against his abdomen. As he expected, his new paunch was indeed very real. It had a give to it that wasn't overly soft, but it was nowhere near firm enough for him to dismiss it as additional muscle mass. 

 

He rubbed his belly in a large circle, the same way that Hanschen would always do after completing a large meal. He wasn't mad about it, necessarily, he was just… surprised. He'd never been anything but thin. Frowning, he sat up and examined himself from that angle instead. Did he look silly, with a noticeable potbelly atop a frame that was still so slender? Or had the rest of him grown larger, too, and he just hadn't noticed yet? His clothes still fit him comfortably, but they had fit loose on him to begin with, so he figured that that may not be the best indicator. 

 

"What's that face for?" Hanschen asked, wandering into the room while buttoning up his pajama shirt, having just taken a bath. Ernst glanced up at him and pursed his lips, trying to get rid of his quizzical expression, while he was actually just intensifying it. 

 

"I think I've gained weight," he stated, leaning back on his palms and looking towards his love. 

 

Hanschen's eyes immediately wandered down to Ernst's middle. He hadn't paid very much attention, but with Ernst's mention of it, Hans could plainly see where his boyfriend now had a small pooch of a stomach; barely anything at all, enough to push against the buttons of his shirt, but not so much as to cause them any strain. 

 

"So what if you have?" He asked simply, sitting down on the bed besides him. 

 

"Do I look gawkish?" Ernst laid back down and stared up at the ceiling. Verbalizing what he was thinking made his cheeks tint bright red, as though he were afraid Hanschen would give him the answer that he didn't want to hear. 

 

"Do you think I look gawkish?" Hans instead asked, raising his eyebrows. Hanschen had always erred on the heftier side; Ernst never had thought of him as fat, but he was stocky and solid, well-built. It was something Ernst always had admired about him. Hanschen's greater strength meant he could easily pick Ernst up and toss him around, which he absolutely adored.

 

"No! Never!" Ernst said, as if Hanschen's question was the most preposterous thing he had ever heard. 

 

"Then what sets you and I apart?" 

 

"The way you look suits you," he stated. "You look the same way you always have. I… I feel as though I look disproportionate now." 

 

"That's not the case in the slightest. I think it's a good thing, you not looking so frail anymore." Hanschen smirked playfully. "I think people were beginning to think that I wasn't feeding you." 

 

"Perhaps now they'll think that you feed me too much." Ernst patted his stomach. 

 

"It's hardly my doing that somebody likes to sneak an extra slice of pie after he thinks I've gone to sleep," Hans teased. Ernst groaned softly, hiding his face in his hands. 

 

"Don't pout, darling. You make it out to be worse than it is." Hanschen sat up and carefully pulled Ernst's nightshirt up to his chest, glancing at his face to see if he was going to protest. When he was met with Ernst's curious stare, simply waiting to see what his next move would be, he continued. He undid his buttons slowly and opened the shirt so he could see his entire torso. Reflexively, Ernst sucked in his gut, but Hanschen gave him a withering look that told him to relax. 

 

"What're you doing?" Ernst murmured, raking a hand through Hanschen's hair and making him look up to meet his eyes. 

 

"I want to look at you," he replied. "I've got to make my assessment." He moved some pillows out of the way and sat behind Ernst so that the other man was in between his legs. He placed his hands over his stomach, gently dragging a finger over the single stretch mark that ran from Ernst's happy trail up to his bellybutton. 

 

Ernst let out a sigh and tried to relax, putting his hands over Hanschen's. 

 

"You do not look gawkish, Ernst. Put that out of your head," whispered Hanschen into Ernst's ear. "Nor disproportionate. You could never be anything less than handsome. And graceful. And lovely." 

 

Ernst opened his mouth to protest, but was disrupted by Hanschen pressing a kiss to the corner of his lips. 

 

"I don't see how you could view me so idealistically," he mumbled upon pulling away from the kiss.

 

"I do so by not searching for flaws where there aren't any to be found," Hans answered. "I think that maybe you should try it. See, think of the future as a–"

 

"A milkshake with cinnamon and sugar," Ernst finished for him. Hanschen applied this analogy to everything he possibly could, Ernst could recite it in his sleep by now. 

 

"Why shouldn't we just skim the cream right off the top? Shouldn't we indulge when we feel it necessary?" He went on, undeterred by Ernst interrupting him. 

 

"I'm not saying that we shouldn't." 

 

"And so we will. We will indulge." Hanschen kissed Ernst's neck. "You ought not feel embarrassed of the weight you've gained. I think we should consider ourselves lucky, instead." 

 

"Lucky?" 

 

"Lucky we have a pantry full of food. And a warm roof over our heads. Lucky for you that you found a life partner who loves to bake," he droned on. 

 

Ernst cupped Hanschen's face and turned his head towards him, smiling softly. He pressed their lips together, which Hanschen took as his cue to stop talking, at long last. Ernst kissed his nose, and then his forehead, and then pecked his lips once more. He got up from his comfortable position in Hanschen's embrace and stretched briefly, making his way out of the room. 

 

"That sweet potato pie is for us to bring to Otto and Anna's house tomorrow," Hanschen said before Ernst was out of earshot. He somehow knew what Ernst was thinking before he had even thought it. 

 

"Then I suppose you'll just have to bake another," Ernst said with a grin, hurrying off to the kitchen before Hanschen had the chance to stop him.


End file.
